Lewis Koumas Shines in Liverpool's Carabao Cup Win
Lewis Koumas walked through the mixed zone with a man of the match award in one hand and his phone in the other, trophy still gleaming under the Anfield lights. Before he spoke to anyone, he made the call that mattered most.
“That was my mum,” he said, grin fixed, adrenaline still running after Liverpool’s 3-1 Carabao Cup third-round win over Tottenham. “She was here tonight with my nan, my granddad and my sister. They were all in the box. I rang them straight away to show them the trophy and they were buzzing.”
It looked and felt like a classic Liverpool story: a local lad shining for his boyhood club in a big cup tie. But this was more than sentiment. This was a performance that ticked every box Andoni Iraola has drawn around his forwards since the day he walked through the door.
The Basque coach had been blunt before kick-off. After a flat draw with Fulham on Saturday, he wanted more from his front line – more pressing, more bite, more work without the ball. The message sounded like it was aimed at the decorated, high-profile names in his squad.
Koumas wasn’t really part of that debate. By full time, he was the answer to it.
He ran himself into the ground against Roberto De Zerbi’s defence, stretching Spurs, dragging centre-backs into places they didn’t want to go, opening lanes for team-mates. He chased lost causes, turned them into half-chances, and set a tempo that Anfield instantly recognised and appreciated.
“The energy he shows is contagious,” Iraola said afterwards. “I’m very happy for him. He does it in training every day. He is very clear what he needs to do, what the team needs.”
Koumas turns 21 on Saturday, the day before Liverpool visit Iraola’s former club Bournemouth. The timing is not lost on him. Neither is the responsibility.
“I think how I play is ultimately the Liverpool way,” he said, quietly but with a certainty that matched the way he had just played. “We’ve always been a club where players have to give absolutely everything on the pitch. We’re bringing that back now and the crowd are loving it.
“A lot of it is about what I do off the ball. The gaffer has shown trust to me that I can carry out his plans in terms of how we want to play tactically. I was happy to do that for him. It gives me so much motivation the fact he’s putting me in for a game like this. I want to kick on now.”
Trust earned the hard way
That trust arrived quickly. Within weeks of taking over in the summer, Iraola told then sporting director Richard Hughes that Koumas was staying. No more loans. No more drifting around the edges of the project. He wanted the Chester-born forward in his first-team squad.
Koumas had already left a strong impression on Liverpool’s pre-season tour of the US. The son of former Tranmere and West Bromwich Albion playmaker Jason Koumas, he has always carried a certain weight of expectation. This season, he has started to turn that into something more tangible: substitute cameos in both the Premier League and Champions League, and now his first senior man of the match award.
Could he have pictured this back in the early days of pre-season, slogging through double sessions with no guarantees?
“No, I would have woken up!” he said. “I would have thought I was dreaming. It’s crazy. But I’m just really happy and very grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given. You never know when your last time on the pitch for Liverpool is going to be. I just try to leave everything out there every time.”
That line does not come from nowhere. Koumas has already done his rounds in the English game. Twelve caps for Wales, but a slow burn at club level. His full Liverpool debut arrived more than two years ago under Jürgen Klopp, a first start crowned with a goal in a 3-0 FA Cup fifth-round win over Southampton.
Then, nothing in red for a long time.
He spent the 2024-25 season on loan at Stoke. The first half of 2025-26 at Birmingham. The second half at Hull. Three clubs, three dressing rooms, one question that always hangs over a young forward on the fringes of a giant: will the pathway back ever really open?
Hunger that never left
“I never showed a weak mentality about how the future would look for me at Liverpool,” Koumas insisted. He grew up idolising Michael Owen and Gareth Bale, watching and replaying their runs, their finishes, their fearlessness. “I always had the drive that I would get here. The reason for going out on loan was to prepare for this moment.
“A lot of hunger can be lost in the game with how things go. But for me coming through the pre-academy and right through the academy, my hunger has always been there. My hunger comes from representing Liverpool Football Club, wanting to give everything for the best club in the world.”
That hunger is exactly what Iraola has been demanding from his forwards. Not just goals, but a way of leading the press, of setting the tone for the entire team. Against Tottenham, Koumas embodied it. The crowd responded. The manager noticed. His family watched it all from high up in the stand, then from the other end of a phone screen.
There will be tougher nights and sterner tests. There always are when you wear Liverpool’s No 9 or anything close to it. But as Koumas walked away from the cameras, man of the match award tucked under his arm, one thing felt clear.
This no longer looks like a dream he might wake up from. It looks like the start of a career Liverpool intend to build around.
